North Korea video shows 'US city' hit by missiles

NORTH Korea has posted a video on YouTube depicting a US city resembling New York engulfed in flames.

AAPFebruary 6, 20138:48am

'US City' hit by missiles3:35

North Korea has posted a video on depicting a US city resembling New York engulfed in flames after an apparent missile attack.

February 5th 2013

5 years ago

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NORTH Korea has posted a video on YouTube depicting a US city resembling New York engulfed in flames after an apparent missile attack.

The video was uploaded by the North's official website, Uriminzokkiri, which distributes news and propaganda from the state media.

The video is shot as a dream sequence, with a young man seeing himself on board a North Korean space shuttle launched into orbit by the same type of rocket Pyongyang successfully tested in December.

As the shuttle circles the globe - to the tune of We Are the World - the video zooms in on countries below, including a reunified Korea.

The focus then switches to a city - shrouded in the US flag - under apparent missile attack, with its skyscrapers either on fire or in ruins.

"Somewhere in the United States, black clouds of smoke are billowing," reads a caption. "It seems that the nest of wickedness is ablaze."

The video ends with the young man concluding that his dream will "surely come true".

"Despite all kinds of attempts by imperialists to isolate and crush us ... never will anyone be able to stop the people marching toward a final victory," it says.

Former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, in a statement to FoxNews.com, said the video is another "disturbing reminder" of what a nuclear-capable North Korea would mean to the world.

"We should not delude ourselves by thinking that Pyongyang will ever be negotiated out of that capability."

Doug Bandow, a senior fellow for Cato Institute specializing in foreign policy, said the "weird" video is proof that Pyongyang has entered the digital age.

"My first reaction is they are getting with the Internet age," Bandow told FoxNews.com. “For years, they have used vivid imagery in their rhetoric — they once threatened to turn Seoul into a lake of fire — so they’ve figured out a way to put pictures to the rhetoric. But it doesn’t look to me to be more than an amplification of what they’ve said for years."

The video is little more than "bluster", Bandow said, and should not be seen as a threat to the United States.

"I think this is bluster," he said. "The good news here is that while they’re evil, they’re not stupid. They know they would lose."

The video comes as South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak said he believed North Korea could detonate multiple devices when it goes ahead with a nuclear test expected in the coming weeks or even days.

In an interview with the Chosun Ilbo daily, the outgoing president also acknowledged the huge challenge the international community faces in seeking to wean Pyongyang off its nuclear weapons program.

The North has signalled that it will carry out a "higher level" nuclear test very soon, in a defiant response to tightened UN sanctions after its successful long-range rocket launch in December.

"North Korea is likely to carry out multiple nuclear tests at two places or more simultaneously" to maximise scientific gains from an event that will be globally condemned, Mr Lee said.

Experts around the world are gearing up to analyse any test for what it might reveal about the current status of the North's weapons program.

Of particular interest will be any sign that its scientists have succeeded in developing a warhead that can be fitted onto a missile.

"If the North produces miniaturised weapons that can be used as warheads on missiles, it would really pose a threat," Mr Lee said. "That's why the whole world is watching it so intensively."

Mr Lee has only a few weeks left in office at the end of a five-year term marked by an almost total freeze of contacts between North and South Korea.

In his interview, he suggested that diplomatic efforts would make little headway in bringing about a significant policy shift in Pyongyang.

"I think it is difficult to persuade the North regime to give up the nuclear path," he said.

Some predict the test will come before the Lunar New Year on February 10, while others suggest it will be timed to coincide with the February 16 birthday of late leader Kim Jong-Il, father of current leader Kim Jong-Un.